Queen’s RECODE Collaborate seeks to improve higher education:

RECODE Collaborate, a student-led initiative of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, seeks to start conversations that identify issues with our higher education, and come up with solutions to change it for the better! Its aim is to redesign the post-secondary education system in such a way that it effectively produces the citizens we need to solve the world’s social, environmental and economic issues.

As one of the 13 universities currently involved in this initiative, Queen’s held its Collaborate Roundtable on February 6, 2016. Students, and faculty from six different university programs came together to discuss the future of higher education at Queen’s and in Canada as a whole. A number of important issues surfaced during the discussions such as consistency in teaching quality, student connectivity, post-secondary costs and siloed faculties. Strengths in current practices were also explored such as the breadth of extracurricular activities and interactive classes. Near the end of the discussions, the participants had the opportunity to co-create more than 14 possible solutions to the issues they had identified.

The next phase of this initiative is hackED Week, which will be held during the week of March 14-18, 2016. Schools across Canada will have the opportunity to ideate and showcase what an implemented solution might look like. This experiential event aims to jumpstart and inspire the long-term changes that RECODE Collaborate will hope to facilitate in coming years.

Interested in getting involved? Contact the Queen’s RECODE Coordinator, Ara Dungca, at ara.dungca@queensu.ca 

To learn more about RECODE Collaborate: http://www.recodecollaborate.ca/